Last week Guenna and I made these delicious cookies for our Homeschool Co-op. We were supposed to bring an authentic Mexican snack food and I found this recipe online.  The only thing I really changed was that I didn’t add the anise seeds (thought the kids would appreciate the cookies better without that spice), and they called to make these in the food processor. I tried it in my high powered VitaMix, it did NOT work so I finished them by hand and they turned out just fine. So if you have a food processor then blend it all in there, otherwise follow my instructions and you will do great it’s just a little more work. By the way, if you are thinking these look an awful lot like Russian Tea Cakes, you are absolutely right! I think it’s the same recipe :) Hope you enjoy!

Mexican Wedding Cookies

Ingredients:

2 cups flour
2 sticks cold butter, cut into pieces
1 3/4 cups powdered sugar
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup almonds
1/2 cup pecans
1 teaspoon anise seeds (optional)

Preparation:

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F.
2. Grind almonds and pecans in food processor or blender.
3. Pour ground nuts into a medium sized bowl, then add butter chop with a pastry blender until well mixed.
4. Add 1/4 c powdered sugar and vanilla, then mix again.
5. Add flour and optional anise seeds continue to mix until incorporated, I just used a fork and/or a wooden spoon.
6. After flouring hands, roll the dough into small balls.
7. Place them about an inch apart on an un-greased cookie sheet.
8. Bake 15-20 minutes, or until brown on the bottom.
9. Cool for 15 minutes, then roll the still warm cookies in the rest of the powdered sugar.
10. Let cool again, then add more powdered sugar.

I think one of these days I’m going to have to try this!  I need a little bit more space in my kitchen, and a little more time to spare, but other than that I think I could do it :) This is a great website, I’m sure I will be spending some more time there looking around. Hope you are as inspired as I was! She even makes some croissants with chocolate in the center, now I might have to try them just for that reason :)

Here’s a recipe for Croissants if you are up for the challenge!

On Saturday night, Chris and I had the pleasure of going on a dinner date with two other couples, to one of our favorite restaurants in the Valley, Il Granaio. They have amazing Italian food, it’s the real deal, and a beautiful atmosphere. I wish that I would have taken more pictures, but alas, I was on a date with my husband and it just wasn’t on my priority list! Before we got to the restaurant we had a little extra time so we sat in a park and took pictures of ourselves together. I love this guy, isn’t he handsome? :)

Anyway, I had the Vitello Marsala (Veal with mushrooms and a wine sauce). Honestly I was a little nervous because I had never had veal before but it was tasty.  Chris had the Filetto al Madera (Filet Mignon sprinkled with Gorgonzola), and wow, it was superb and worth every penny! We shared some red and white wine with our meal, perfecto! Then afterward Chris and I shared the Chocolate Decadance with a steaming hot cup of coffee.  What better way to end an incredible evening with good friends! Thanks you guys for such a lovely evening, we had such a great time, hope to do it again sometime soon! And for anyone who might be looking for a nice restaurant in the Skagit Valley, Mt. Vernon WA, this is the place. Their prices are definitely affordable, the food is excellent and the building is just classy. My favorite dish they serve so far is the Blackened SalmonCaesar, it’s amazing! Just a little tip :)

And of course, thanks to nana and papa who had mercy on us and watched our little rascals. They had a great time at your house, as always, and didn’t want to go home! They even smelled better than they did when we dropped them off! You guys are the best, we love you!

The other night I made Batter Fried Fish with some salmon that I bought from Costco. I knew that i would have too much for our family to eat if I made it all up.  I didn’t want the salmon to go to waste, I love my chickens but I don’t want to feed them expensive salmon! So I froze about half of the salmon to use later. Tonight I tried a new, to me, recipe.Knowing that this recipe was a little bit out there for the kids, at least the boys, I decided it would be easy to make them something similar, in order to let us try something a little different without having to fight with them about trying something new. If you know me, you know that I am NOT a short order cook, but I know my kids limitations, and I know when I’m feeling up to pushing them to try a new dish :) I decided tonight was not the night for that!

So the kids got open-faced egg salad sandwiches, since I was already making hard boiled eggs for this recipe. And as you can see in the photo, Cait is enjoying hers, on her finger :) I found this salmon salad recipe on the Food Network, and we really liked it. The only thing I changed was that I didn’t add the cayanne pepper, due to my problems with pregnancy related heartburn. Oh yeah, and I didn’t have any lemons so I used a lime and we loved it! Hope you enjoy it too!

Salmon Salad Spread

Ingredients:

2 cups cooked, flaked salmon
2 hard-boiled eggs, crushed
1 red or green bell pepper, diced
1 cucumber, peeled, seeded, and diced
1/2 cup chopped onions
4 to 5 tablespoons mayonnaise, or enough to moisten
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper, optional
Salt and pepper1/2 lemon, juiced

Preparation:

In a large bowl, gently toss together the salmon and crushed hard-boiled eggs. In another bowl, combine bell pepper, cucumber, onion, and mayonnaise. Add seasonings and stir to combine. Pour mixture over salmon, add lemon juice, and toss lightly to combine. Serve over lettuce or as a sandwich. I spread it over some delcious artisan bread from Fred Meyer, toasted in the oven. Wonderful!

The Husband here with a guest post.

For over a year I have wanted someone to build an online meal planning site that you could plan meals and the ingredients would end up on a shopping list that you could take to the store and plan what is supposed to be on your shelf.

Well I am happy to say that someone finally did it, Its called Tasty Planner and its free.

In their words,

Tasty Planner is here to help you create, plan and share recipes, menus, grocery lists and more. We take out all the hassle in planning great meals for you. We’ll also help you make a few chef friends along the way.

I would suggest taking a look at their features and see if this is something that could help out your family.

This past March we had 4 birthdays to celebrate, three of our kids and one nephew, so we had one big birthday bash and I decided that cupcakes were in order!

For the girls, I had purchased a flower shaped cupcake pan. I decorated them with pink frosting and very girlie sprinkles and then wrote out their names, one letter on each cupcake, on top of the cupcakes. I had them displayed on a pretty plate and the girls, and boys loved them! Very simple and of course it will be fun to reuse the cupcake pan some day.

For the boys, I chose blue frosting to hold on the decorative candies. And the cupcake pan? Was a birthday present from my mother in law, I love it! I’ve also used it for muffins and corn bread and it works really well. The decorating was easy, just time consuming but those sweet boys in my life, they are worth it! I have not done many cupcakes so I thought this would be fun for a change, the kids seemed to really enjoy all the sweets! And I guess I just love seeing the looks on their faces when they see my birthday creations, maybe that is what spurs me on to be more creative.

Proverbs 19:13b “…And the contentions of a wife are a constant dripping.”

Picture this: You’ve been dealing with little Johnny’s whining all day, and it’s starting to wear on you (of course to make you feel worse, later you discover that he’s teething and you didn’t know it but had been irritated at him all day long!). It’s almost time for your husband to come home and you are trying to be the “good” wife and have dinner ready by the time he gets home. But while you are flipping burgers you splatter grease all over one of your nicest T-shirts and burn your hand, bad timing. Then you go to the pantry to grab something for dinner and go to turn on the light, you are reminded that your husband has yet to change the light bulb you asked him to change several days ago, so instead of letting it go you pile that irritation on top of the others. Then the you head back to the burgers and your ears are pierced by the shrieking cries of two of your loveliest children, fighting over a book you told them to sit down to read (separately). You begin to ask yourself, “WHY?! Can’t I just get dinner ready in peace for once?!” Now the baby has finished her Cheerios you gave her to snack on while you made dinner and is nearly pulling your pants off when your husband (who has NOT changed the lightbulb in the pantry) walks through the door, completely oblivious to what your day has been like.

He is greeted with the back of his wife who does not turn to greet him, and sees the crying child and the two screaming book thieves in the living room. He assumes correctly that at least these past few moments have been a little hard on his dear wife. Trying to assess the situation he is again greeted by a silent and obviously irritable wife, so he does his best to not add to the problem. You are, in the mean time, having a little pity party about how hard it is to be a mom of this many kids, and you have a headache too! Dinner time is not any more fun than dinner prep was. The kids can do nothing right, you still have yet to make eye contact with your husband and give him that warm hug and kiss he really longs for (he’s had a hard day too). Johnny whines through the whole meal, because he’s hurting and just needs to sit in your lap for a bit and have a little sip of some Tylonol. And you feel like you are going to break down and cry, any moment now.

Here’s what I’ve been realizing lately. We wives, moms. We set the tone in the home. Dinnertime is a time of celebration, it’s one of God’s many gifts to the family. And we can so easily ruin it with our un-submitted attitudes. I have done this often myself. I have also had hard days where I was able to pour out a little bit to my husband when he got home, and shed a tear or two and then managed to give it to the Lord so that we could sit down together as a family in peace.

Our husbands long to come home to a haven, and not a war zone. But in order for them to be able to view our homes as a haven, we must live lives that are submitted to God. We want our children to obey us, but if we are not modeling obedience to Christ, how will they know what it looks like to have a good attitude?  I wonder this often, “why are my kids so grumpy today?!” But when I really examine myself on those days, I find that I am feeling grumpy, and have set the tone for my own children’s bad attitudes.  There are times when our children have an especially hard day, they need to see us modeling a repentant, submitted heart by watching us turn to the Lord for help and watching us change our attitude in the midst of a hard day.  Nothing sets the tone for a cheerful dinnertime better than a cheerful mama :)

So my encouragement to you ladies is this, seek the Lord with me. I am asking the Lord to give me the wisdom to know when to let things go. As well as the grace to train my children better during the day so that when our family dinner time rolls around they will be ready to obey and we will have a lighthearted and joyful time at the table. I want to be organized enough so that dinner time is not stressful and we can all enjoy one another’s company freely. “Dear Lord please keep me from the destruction of contentiousness, I don’t want to be a dripping irritation to either my husband or children. Help me to be obedient to you Father so that my children will follow me as I follow you and together we will glorify you in all that we do.”

‘Tis the season for making zucchini bread! Our neighbors gave us a nice sized zucchini and we made fried zucchini the other night with some left over batter for our fish. The remainder, I shredded for zucchini bread. I got this recipe from All Recipes and changed a few things. I used only whole wheat flour where they called for part whole wheat and part white. I used olive oil where they called for canola oil, and I used pecans instead of walnuts and added a cup of chocolate chips, yum! We were all very impressed with how this bread turned out, even Aidan who had decided before it even went into the oven, that he didn’t think he would like this bread because it had zucchini in it :) Well, he changed his mind real quick when it came out and smelled so good, and chocolate chips always help!

Note: This recipe makes a triple batch.

Whole Wheat Zucchini Bread

Ingredients:

6 eggs, beaten
1 cup honey
1 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup olive oil or melted butter
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
6 cups whole wheat flour
2 Tablespoons ground cinnamon
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 teaspoons baking soda
2 teaspoons salt
4 cups grated zucchini
1 cup chopped pecans (optional)
1 cup chocolate chips (optional)

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease three 8×4 inch loaf pans and set aside.
2. In a large bowl, whisk together the eggs, honey, brown sugar, oil and vanilla.
3. Combine the whole wheat flour, all-purpose flour, cinnamon, baking powder, baking soda and salt; stir into the wet ingredients until moistened. Gently stir in the zucchini and walnuts until evenly distributed. Divide batter evenly between the prepared pans.
4. Bake for 50 to 60 minutes in the preheated oven, or until a knife inserted into the crown comes out clean. Cool in the pan until cool enough to touch, then turn out onto a wire rack to cool completely. Wrap in plastic wrap or store in a plastic bag when cool.
5. Don’t let it cool too much, it tastes so good served warm with butter melting on top! I think I need to make another batch!

Here are my pumpkins, I’m hoping that we get a little more sun to make sure they can mature and ripen. They are so pretty even if they don’t ripen :)  There are rumors that we will have an Indian Summer but after these two weeks of tons of rain, I will believe it when I see it!

And we have tons of corn!  I don’t know if they will continue to ripen if we don’t get more sunshine, I will have to see. It’s been a hard year for a successful garden, a late start and an early end. But it’s been a learning experience and I will definitely do it again next year with a year of successful gardening under my belt.

So let the fall come, I actually really look forward to the fall season it means that our baby is coming soon. I especially love apple season, I will forever have the emotionally charged memory of the smell of cooking apple butter filling the house connected with the labor and birth of our sweet Eamon. Who knows, maybe the week I’m expecting this new one I will get up the energy to make a bunch of applesauce. I also love all the changes that fall brings, the colorful changing leaves, the harvest season, pumpkins and pumpkin pie, and all the lovely warm soups and hearty meals I find myself preparing for our family. Good times.

I have a confession to make. Tonight I went to Starbucks to work on some blogging (which is not a good idea considering I was really distracted by all the conversations going on around me, I got to know these two people sitting next to me, way more than I wanted to!) My Confession: I did order a drink, but I brought my own dessert to eat with my coffee, I wrapped it in a napkin and put it in my purse :) I had been wanting to try this recipe from everybody likes sandwiches all week.  The only thing that I changed about her recipe was that I doubled it and used a 9×13 inch pan instead of the 8×8. And wow, what a delicious dessert bar! The flavor was amazing and the smell in the kitchen was very inviting, it finished cooking  before dinner which made it hard to want to eat dinner first. I’m glad I tried this recipe, thanks!

Oatmeal Coconut Pecan Squares with Chocolate Chips

Ingredients:

2 cups rolled oats
1 cup flour
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup chocolate chips
1 cup unsweetened shredded coconut
1/2 cup chopped pecans
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
10 Tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and slightly cooled
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla

Preparation:

1. Preheat oven to 350.
2. Combine all the dry ingredients (oats through salt) in a large bowl.
3. In a smaller bowl, mix together the melted butter, egg and vanilla. Dump the wet ingredients into the dry and mix until well blended.
4. Oil up an 9×13 inch pan and pour mixture in, patting the top flat with your hands while making sure the mixture gets into the corners. Bake for 25 minutes or until edges are golden brown, and cool. Cut into squares.